


Live Long and Prosper

by RudeNNotGinger



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Real Person Fiction, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Crossover, Feels, Fluff, Inspired by Real Events, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 10:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14616771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RudeNNotGinger/pseuds/RudeNNotGinger
Summary: Ambassador Spock looked at Clara quizzically, raising one eyebrow. “I assure you, Miss Oswald, that I am quite real,” he replied.Twelve does something special for Clara after Leonard Nimoy passes away. In the Who universe, this occurs right afterLast Christmas. In the Star Trek universe, it is right beforeUnification I & II.





	Live Long and Prosper

**Author's Note:**

> _Dedicated to Leonard Nimoy, March 26, 1931 February 27, 2015. We always have been, and always will be, your fans._ Note: This references previous comic crossover material: _Assimilation Squared_ , in which the Fourth and Eleventh Doctors help the original Enterprise and the Enterprise-D battle Cybermen, and stop a Cyberman-Borg alliance. Additionally, I am taking a bit of license and suggesting that Spock met Ten at some point. Finally, credit goes to Esp French, an online friend and Trek fan, for a line of Spock's dialogue regarding the pursuit of peace being logical.
> 
> * * *

“Universes are a tricky thing, Clara.”  


Clara watched the Doctor slowly grasp the edge of the console with his nimble, bony hands and lean forward. Glancing down, she saw shadows collect in the valleys between his knuckles like an unloosed river claiming barren land.  
  
Clara said nothing. She didn’t know what to say.  
  
The Doctor stared into the time rotor’s lights, watching its sunglow heart pulse as the TARDIS sailed through the vortex. “We exist in so many different slices of spacetime,” he said. “So many versions of us out there, carrying on our lives, living, dying, our paths intersecting with other people’s. Most of you humans don’t even think about it...like living inside a fishbowl with all the glass darkened.”  
  
He whirled around and gazed at Clara. “But one night, you peer into the blackness of night, into those tiny diamond pinpricks of light, and wonder what lies beyond. You stare up into the vast expanse and it looks so enormous, and for a moment you feel infinitesimal...one grain in a sea of sand. But then suddenly, you want to be up there.” He looked up and pointed as if to punctuate _there_.  
  
Clara gazed up at him, her bold print eyes shining in the time rotor lights. “But s’not really up. More like around us,” she said, gesturing with a sweep of her hand, “in every direction.”  
  
“Exactly, Clara.” He leaned closer, fixing his cerulean-eyed gaze on her. “All of our selves look around into different skies. And some of them...leap into those skies, powered by rocket fuel, matter and antimatter colliding with each other at just the right ratio, or…” He pointed a long, thin index finger at his temple. “Their own minds.”  
  
Clara folded her arms and smiled weakly. “So he’s not really, dead, then.” She felt a lump coalescing inside her throat. “Right?”  
  
The Doctor gazed at her.  
  
“Clara,” he said softly. “I have someone I’d like you to meet.”  
  
Clara watched as he turned back around and focused on the console.  
  
“Who, Doctor?” she asked, glancing up at him. “Who’re we going to go meet?”  
  
The Doctor did not answer her. She decided not to push for an answer but instead watched him fuss over the console’s controls. The moment dangled suspended in mid-air; silence expanded from it, flooding the entire console room. In the sea of quiet, Clara heard the TARDIS hum as she traveled through the vortex, her time rotor gently rising and falling like breath.  
  
It was not long before the TARDIS landed, screeching and wheezing her way into solid form as she materialized. Clara searched the Doctor’s face, but found it unyielding: no tiny upward curves of his lips, no glint of mischief in his eyes. Her first Doctor -- Chin Boy -- had certainly been unpredictable but a bit easier to read. This Doctor could mask himself -- all pale face of stone, wooly hair, and red-lined Crombie coat -- and she couldn’t read past that steeled Time Lord facade.  
  
Finally, the facade cracked a little as a gentle smile bloomed on his lips. “Come on, Clara,” he said, offering his hand.  
  
Clara grasped his hand and they walked towards the TARDIS doors. The Doctor pushed one of the doors open; Clara saw a golden sky dripping persimmon light onto a crowd of tall, spindly stone buildings in the distance. A beige road bisected through them, dividing them into two perfectly even groups standing on either side of the pathway.  
  
The Doctor slid through the door, pulling Clara along. She heard the door swing closed, and secure itself with a gentle click behind them.  
  
“The planet Vulcan,” the Doctor said as they walked down the road. Their footfalls clicked loudly on the hard surface, echoing in the warm, tawny light. Slim, silver teardrop-shaped shuttles whizzed over their heads and sailed above the city. “One of the most advanced civilizations in this universe.”  
  
“Wait...we left our own universe then,” Clara replied, her glance darting around at the arched, triangular tips of the buildings puncturing the ripening sky.  
  
“This universe has an Earth,” the Doctor continued, “and its solar system is almost identical to your own. It boasts many of the same planets, galaxies, and star systems. But it has the planet Vulcan,” he said, gesturing around them, “and yours does not. Which is why we are here.”  
  
“Wait a minute.” Clara glanced up at him, her eyes widening. “Vulcan. As is...Star Trek Vulcan.”  
  
"As in exists in another universe Vulcan," the Doctor declared, staring straight ahead at a slender, sand-colored toothpick of a building.  
  
The Doctor's strides quickened, and Clara struggled to keep pace with him, owing to the blast of heat and the slightly thinner atmosphere. As they approached the slender skyscraper ahead, she noticed it sprang up just beyond where the end of the road T-boned into another. A tiny pathway led up to its front door; after they closed the distance between the road and the front door, the Doctor pressed the tip of his long, bony index finger on a large button in the center of a black control panel to the right of the front door. A small read-out screen lit up in response.  
  
"The Doctor," he said, leaning down and speaking to the screen. "With one guest, Clara Oswald."  
  
The bronze double doors in front of them parted, revealing a spartan beige interior. The Doctor slid through the opening, and Clara quickly darted in just behind him. Her eyes adjusted to the dimness inside the lobby of the building. Light spilled in through a large, rectangular window on the wall to their left, and tumbled onto two sets of bronze lift doors on the right wall. It danced on the curves and corners of a lithe golden statue standing in the opposite corner near the lift doors and bounced on the flat, gleaming surfaces of a strange metal piece of art hanging on the wall between the lifts.  
  
The Doctor pressed a small, clear button on the black control panel between the lifts. It lit up bright and orange underneath his fingertip, the light leaking into his skin until a peach glow bloomed through his fingernail. The set of lift doors on their left slid open; the Doctor and Clara walked inside the cab. Clara watched him press a button on the inside control panel, and the doors shut in front of them.  
  
******  
  
_“Doctor.”_  
  
A tall, gaunt, olive-skinned Vulcan stood on the other side of an apartment’s open doorway. Neatly cropped shiny black hair with veins of silver framed his long angular face; his perfectly straight-edged bangs hung a few inches above his thin, dark upswept eyebrows and deep brown eyes. He wore a broad-shouldered cream-colored robe stitched with gold thread; it boasted a golden breastplate inlaid with an intricate pattern of multi-colored stones.  
  
“Hello, old friend,” the Doctor replied, holding his right hand up, fingers parting to form a V in the Vulcan salute. Clara glanced back at the Doctor, then quickly raised her own right hand and mimicked his salute. The Vulcan raised his right hand and saluted them in return.  
  
Clara gazed at the tall Vulcan standing before her. _No way. This can’t be Spock._  
  
Ambassador Spock glanced at the Doctor. “I did not expect to see you again,” he said.  
  
“I thought I’d just...pop in and say hello,” the Doctor replied.  
  
“Fascinating,” Ambassador Spock said softly, almost to himself as he raised his eyebrow. He glanced at Clara. “I have not met your friend, Doctor. Your companion, I presume?”  
  
The Doctor glanced at Clara and then back at Ambassador Spock. “Oh! Yes. Ambassador Spock, this is Miss Clara Oswald,” he said, gesturing to Clara first. He then gestured to Spock. “Clara, this is Ambassador Spock of Vulcan.”  
  
“Doctor,” Clara said, gazing back and forth between Ambassador Spock and the Doctor, “you mean to say that this is Spock. Star Trek Spock. Fictional character Spock.”  
  
Ambassador Spock looked at Clara quizzically, raising one eyebrow. “I assure you, Miss Oswald, that I am quite real,” he replied.  
  
Clara couldn’t help but smile.  
  
“Please come in,” Ambassador Spock said, moving to the side to allow his guests to walk through the open doorway of his dwelling. As the door closed behind them with a soft _shush_ , Clara noticed his home was decorated in earthen and sandy shades. Some metal statues like the ones she’d seen in the lobby downstairs sat in the odd corner or three, and several paintings hung on the walls.  
  
As they rounded a corner into the living room, she noticed a black candle in the shape of a pyramid sitting on top of a shelf. Just above the shelf a massive painting hung, a rectangular thing full of blues and greens in which a pale, phosphorescent angel chased a man and woman to the rightmost edge of the scene. _Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise._ Clara had seen that painting hanging in Spock’s quarters from Star Trek VI. Valeris had looked at it and asked: _Why keep it in your quarters?_ She remembered Spock’s reply. _To be a reminder to me that all things come to an end._  
  
Clara swallowed hard.  
  
“Please sit down,” Spock said as he glanced at the Doctor and Clara, who took a seat on a large cream-colored couch facing a stone fireplace with an arched opening. “I was just making some tea. Would you like some?”  
  
“Of course,” the Doctor replied.  
  
Clara nodded. “Yes, please,” she said.  
  
Spock turned around and walked towards an open doorway into his kitchen.  
  
Clara looked over at the Doctor. “So this is like a missing scene, eh?” she asked softly, making sure Spock did not hear her.  
  
The Doctor turned his head and leaned towards her. “You could say that,” he whispered.  
  
"I see you have changed again, Doctor.” Spock’s voice floated from the kitchen, interrupting them. Clara looked up and saw him drop a handful of tea leaves and whole spices into an avocado-colored teapot. “I remember that when we first met, you had a penchant for multi-colored striped scarves. And last I recall, you had a fondness for suits, eyeglasses, and...rather creative hair.”  
  
The Doctor chuckled. “The fancy suit and hair was two regenerations ago, Ambassador. Much has happened to me since then.”  
  
“It is fortunate that you arrived when you did.” Spock pressed a button near the facet in his kitchen sink and slid a small copper-colored pot underneath the running water, letting it fill the pot until he was satisfied. “I have just finished putting my personal affairs in order and will leave Vulcan tomorrow.”  
  
The Doctor glanced at Spock. “You don’t say.”  
  
“Indeed,” Spock replied, pressing the button on his sink again so that the water flow instantly stopped. “I am about to undertake a personal mission of peace.”  
  
_A personal mission of peace?_ Clara had heard Spock say that once during an episode. She scanned her memory, trying to find it, but her brain seemed to return only foggy images of a dimly lit cave...and Captain Picard’s face.  
  
“Does it involve the Federation at all?” Clara asked.  
  
Spock looked over at his guests. “No,” he replied as he placed the pot on his stove and turned a knob to begin heating the water. “The Federation is not even aware of my impending visit.”  
  
Clara tilted her head and looked at Spock curiously. This sounded very familiar.  
  
“A personal mission of peace,” the Doctor repeated softly to himself. He looked up at Spock and clasped his hands together. “Are you visiting a friend, an enemy...or neither, Ambassador?”  
  
Spock walked away from the stove and stood in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. “A long-standing enemy, Doctor,” he replied. “Considering the Federation’s current difficulties in relations with them, they would certainly not approve of my visit.”  
  
Spock heard hissing and bubbling behind him. He turned around and walked back to the stove to attend to the pot of boiling water. Clara watched as he turned the same knob counterclockwise. He removed the pot of water, carefully poured its contents into the green teapot sitting on a nearby counter, and replaced the teapot’s lid.  
  
“So...why take such a risk, Ambassador?” she asked. “Why reach out to a known enemy? Why do something the Federation wouldn’t want you to do?”  
  
Clara’s question caught Spock by the ears. He whirled around, folded his hands together, and walked through the doorway towards them.  
  
“I have often asked myself the same question, Miss Oswald,” he replied. He stopped in front of them and gazed at Clara. “Especially considering the unremitting hostility which has existed between their people and mine for almost two millenia.”  
  
Clara’s eyes widened. _The Romulans!_  
  
“But I have a personal longtime friend there...someone in the government on that world who may be open to the cause of peace and reconciliation.” He paused. “He has also reported a change in sentiment, particularly with their youth, which may make the possibility of peace between our peoples more viable.”  
  
_Senator Pardek._ Light erupted in her mind and brushed over the cragged walls of the caves under the city where Senator Pardek met with the youths of the Romulan underground movement. A thin, grey-armoured blond Romulan female -- Sela -- appeared from the shadows; her men took Captain Picard, Data, and Spock captive as she congratulated Pardek the traitor. _Senator Pardek, your service to the Romulan people is noted and appreciated._ Pardek smirked in Spock’s direction.  
  
Clara wanted to slap Pardek.  
  
She glanced at Spock and began to open her mouth, but quickly thought better of it and clamped it shut, biting back her warning. _No use corrupting time and space, even if it is fictional to us._  
  
Spock looked at her, raising an eyebrow “Miss Oswald?”  
  
Clara felt herself seize up a little inside. She shook her head quickly. “I’m sorry, Ambassador. Just a stray thought. Carry on.”  
  
“The tea should be ready now,” Spock said. He turned and walked back into the kitchen. Clara waited until he was out of earshot, then turned to the Doctor.  
  
“This has all been fiction to me,” she whispered into his ear. “I used to watch Star Trek on the telly when I was younger. You mean to tell me that in another universe, this is all...real?”  
  
The Doctor nodded. “Just as in our own universe, we are real. Yet, in other universes, we are fictions as well.”  
  
Out of the corner of her eye, Clara saw Spock pour the freshly brewed tea into three avocado green cups and set them on an avocado green tray. She and the Doctor sat straight up and watched Spock carry the tray into the living room and set it down on the glass-top coffee table in front of them. He picked up his own mug, after which Clara and the Doctor took the two remaining mugs off of the tray. “Vulcan spice tea,” he said.  
  
“Smells wonderful,” the Doctor replied, sniffing the aroma that rose from his cup in steamy coils from the liquid’s surface.  
  
“That’s a beautiful looking tea set, Ambassador,” Clara said, inhaling the aroma from her own cup. It smelled vaguely like cinnamon, warm and punchy, with a hint of both sweetness and bitterness underneath.  
  
“A present, from Admiral Uhura,” Spock replied, carefully raising his own cup to his lips and taking a careful, tentative sip.  
  
The Doctor leaned in a little. “You were saying, Ambassador...about your personal mission of peace.”  
  
Spock nodded, and set his cup down on the tray. “I am sure many would question the wisdom of this mission. My father might say that it is...highly illogical." He folded his hands. “We often have not seen eye to eye on many things. In fact, we have not spoken in a long time.”  
  
Clara nodded, and sipped her tea. _Arguments about the Federation-Cardassian war, no doubt._  
  
“But if there is hope for our peoples to reconcile, I must pursue it.”  
  
_How do you not know it’s a trap?_ The question floated up to Clara’s mind, but she swallowed it back. She raised her eyebrows. “So for you, the pursuit of peace, even with a sworn enemy, is logical.”  
  
Spock glanced first at Clara, and then at the Doctor. "It has been my experience that peace is never illogical. Therefore, the pursuit of peace...is innately logical."  
  
“I wish you much success, Ambassador,” the Doctor said, looking up at Spock before drinking a deep draught from his own cup of tea and setting the cup back onto the tray. “Your mission may be a difficult one.”  
  
Clara glanced over at him, wondering how he could drink the scalding hot liquid so quickly. _Time Lord physiology, she guessed._  
  
“No doubt you are correct, Doctor” Spock replied. “But I have faith that the Universe will unfold as it should.”  
  
Clara smiled. _I’ve heard that somewhere before._  
  
******  
“I’m sorry we must leave you now, Ambassador,” the Doctor said as he, Clara, and Spock stood near the door of the apartment. “But I’m sure you still have a few things to do before leaving Vulcan.”  
  
“Indeed,” Spock replied. “Your visit was most welcome.”  
  
The Doctor smiled. “We will fight our good fight...and we wish you the best in fighting yours.”  
  
“Ah, yes, Doctor,” Spock said, raising an eyebrow. “The Federation does owe its gratitude to you. I recall hearing of your and your companions’ assistance to the Enterprise in fighting the Cybermen-Borg alliance.”  
  
The Doctor chuckled. “Part of that was in my last regeneration.”  
  
Clara glanced at him and suddenly watched the mirth fall from his face, and darkness cloud over in his eyes. _Was it Amy and Rory, that time?_ He never talked about the others: never mind she’d _met_ Martha Jones, River Song, and Captain Jack. Never mind that she’d seen his companions when she was splintered throughout his timeline. He didn’t talk about them. And she didn’t push him.  
  
She glanced up at Spock and swallowed back a lump. She decided that goodbye needed to be...goodbye. Especially for herself.  
  
Slowly raising up her right hand, her fingers formed into the V of the Vulcan salute. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Doctor mimic her with his own right hand.  
  
“Live long and prosper, Ambassador Spock,” she said, managing to blink back tears.  
  
Spock raised his right hand and saluted in return.  
  
“Peace and long life, Miss Oswald.” He looked at the Doctor. “Doctor.”  
  
“Goodbye, old friend,” the Doctor said softly as all three of them lowered their hands.  
  
The door slid open. Clara and the Doctor passed through the open doorway and into the hallway. Clara glanced over her shoulder and saw Spock watching them walk away. She quickly turned around and began striding a little faster.  
  
“Clara, you in a hurry to get out of here?” the Doctor asked as he sped up to keep pace with her.  
  
“Just a mo’, Doctor,” she replied, looking away from him as they ducked into an open lift at the end of the hallway. The lift doors gently closed in front of them. She turned and looked up at the Doctor, tears streaming down her cheeks.  
  
“What’s wrong, Clara?” the Doctor asked, regarding her curiously as he folded his arms in front of his body.  
  
“You...just took us to see Spock,” she said, brushing away the tears from her cheeks.  
  
“And that’s wrong?” he looked at her, his eyes widening a little.  
  
“No, no, you silly Time Lord,” Clara replied, smiling a little as she lightly punched his arm. “That’s absolutely _right_. Just like...when you tried to help me find Danny.” She paused. “I jus’ didn’t want to...break down in tears in front of my favorite person from Star Trek, you know?”  
  
The Doctor looked at her, but said nothing.  
  
She brushed away the last of her tears and swallowed down yet another lump. “So,” she said, looking up at the Doctor, “Spock lives. In spite of the fact that Leonard Nimoy died.”  
  
He nodded. “As I said...universes are a tricky thing, Clara.”  
  
She chuckled. “So we...are fictions to people in other universes, then. People might be watching us on a telly somewhere...or reading stories about us, right?”  
  
“Indeed, Clara,” he replied. “And we are just as real, just as Spock is in his universe.”  
  
The Doctor leaned in closer, and lowered his voice. “Being a fiction doesn’t make you _not_ real. In fact...we become real the moment we are conceived. Whether that is inside a womb...or inside a mind.”  
  
Clara smiled. “And that is...quite logical, Doctor.”  
  
“Indeed, Clara, indeed,” the Doctor replied.  
  
The lift slowed to a gentle stop, and its doors opened. Clara and the Doctor passed between the open doors and turned left into the lobby. The front doors opened as they approached, and Clara saw warm tangerine and crimson light dance off the spindly Vulcan skyscrapers just beyond the doorway. As they exited the building through the open doors, she saw the TARDIS shining in the golden light of the Vulcan sunset, waiting for them just ahead at the end of the slender, light-drenched pathway.

* * *

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=57083>


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